Language barrier an issue at Korean's murder trial

Defense questions Northbrook man's comprehension during questioning in death of his son

December 13, 2012|By Dan Hinkel, Chicago Tribune reporter

The Koh family of Northbrook. Son Paul, right, was slain in April 2009 and his father, Hyungseok, is on trial on murder charges.

As detectives interrogated Hyungseok Koh the day his son was found stabbed to death, a Korean-American police officer listened in and occasionally interpreted between police and the man they increasingly suspected of murder.

In his tentative English, Koh uttered what authorities consider a confession to killing his son, Paul Koh, in their Northbrook home in April 2009. Last week, prosecutors called the Korean-American officer to the stand to help make their case during the murder trial, which could conclude this week.

But on cross-examination by defense lawyers, Officer Sung Phil Kim answered a question that appeared designed to sow doubt in jurors' minds as to whether Koh fully understood the videotaped conversation that helped land him in jail with a $5 million bond, facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.

Asked about his mastery of the Korean language, Kim acknowledged, "It's not great."

Experts on linguistics agreed it is inadvisable to interrogate a suspect who speaks imperfect English without a skilled interpreter, and they said using a police officer raises questions about the neutrality of an interpretation. And while certified interpreters are common in court, many states, including Illinois, don't have laws mandating capable interpretation during interrogation, experts on linguistics and justice said.

The Koh trial, with its multiple interpreters and Korean-speaking spectators, highlights the challenges of pursuing justice across a language barrier. And Koh's fate could turn on jurors' assessments of statements he gave to police, largely in his second language and with the help of an imperfect interpreter.

Near the end of the video of the interrogation, after Koh has denied fighting with his son the morning of his death, a detective asks Koh in English, "Did you cut his neck?"

"Yes," Koh replies with a nod.

Koh's trial, nearing the end of its third week in the Skokie branch of Cook County Circuit Court, has focused on two theories of how his son died — murder or suicide.

Prosecutors have worked to convince the jury that the father, furious about his son's drug use and shiftlessness, attacked him with a knife as he came home early one morning from buying marijuana, stabbing him at least six times and slitting his throat.

The son suffered defensive wounds, prosecutors said, and jurors last week saw a gory photograph of the 22-year-old lying in the doorway of the home he shared with his parents.

Koh's defense team has painted Paul Koh as a troubled man who spoke of hearing voices, told family members of his spirit meeting Jesus and had wandered the neighborhood semiclothed. The defense team says his parents found him dead and that police coerced the confession from a man who didn't fully understand what he was saying to detectives.

The broken English spoken by the defendant and his wife has factored into every aspect of the trial. Hyungseok Koh, 60, immigrated to the United States from South Korea about 25 years ago, and he and his wife once owned a restaurant in Aurora. Before he was jailed, the Kohs attended a Palatine church that held services in Korean.

At trial, an interpreter has spoken quietly into Koh's ear as he hunches over the defense table, and the three days of testimony from his wife, Eunsook Koh, were especially laborious because she spoke through an interpreter.

Trying to demonstrate that Hyungseok Koh had shown anger at his son, the prosecution elicited testimony from one witness — Paul Koh's friend, Neil Schnitzler, of Northbrook — who said he had heard the two quarrel on the phone.

Hyungseok Koh sounded "very demanding," Schnitzler said before defense attorney Andrew Vail called out an objection to halt the testimony.

"It was in Korean," Vail said, sounding incredulous.

Schnitzler speaks no Korean, and Judge Garritt Howard told the jury to disregard the answer.

Jurors also heard a recording of the 911 call Koh made the morning his son died. In his heavy accent, Koh can be heard shrieking "Emergency! Emergency! People died!"

"Oh my God, my son, my son!" the jury heard him shout.

Jurors also watched the recording of Koh's interrogation, conducted in three sessions and totaling about 21/2 hours. After Koh waived his right to a lawyer — asking to no avail for a pastor — he took increasingly pointed questions from Northbrook Detective Mark Graf, who started the interrogation across a conference table from Koh but moved to a chair within feet of the suspect, raised his voice and told him he believed he'd lied about his son's death.

Koh began the interrogation by denying he fought with his son but later seemed to say he'd killed him.